Bringing back the Delphi buyouts

WARREN — Some of the workers who took buyouts and thought they'd be long gone from Delphi Packard Electric after Jan. 1 may be around for a while.

A number of the workers, who accepted buyouts of as much as $140,000 , apparently will be hired back on a temporary basis for the new year.

They would staff operations that are being closed or shipped to other Delphi sites, such as Mexico or China, said Don Arbogast, shop chairman for Local 717 of the International Union of Electrical Workers.

Workers are needed because some of these operations will stay active in early 2007, but Packard workers who have accepted early retirement or buyout incentives are leaving by Dec. 31, he said.

Union and company officials have reached an agreement in principle to allow workers to staff those discontinued operations, but details have yet to be worked out, he said.

Pay rates are among the factors that haven’t been decided, but Arbogast said they would be substantially less than workers make now.

A Delphi spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Packard has been hiring temporary workers from outside the company. Arbogast said company negotiators pushed for the ability to hire 1,600 temporary workers but the union would only allow 300. Packard staged a hiring fair and attracted a lot of candidates for the jobs, which pay $10 an hour but don’t have benefits.

Arbogast said the company hired only 100, and about 20 percent have quit.